Hit Dating Game Mystic Messenger Makes A Game Out Of Emotional Labor

The Korean dating simulator Mystic Messenger has become somewhat of a sensation among over a million women worldwide. It’s an “otome” game (literally, “maiden game”) that offers female players a harem of anime boys to court. These suitors are all charming in their own ways and all have their particular emotional needs. And, goddamn, are…

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

It’s the weekend! I have so many chores to do: laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning the bathroom—which means I’m going to think about doing those things and then just play some video games instead. I’m excited to finally check out the latest episode of Hitman, which many of Kotaku’s staff has been enjoying. I’ve also been playing…

The Sims 4 Players Who Are Being Haunted By Glitch Ghosts

In this week’s episode of The Save Files, we look at the ridiculous ways people have tried to exorcise ghosts in The Sims 4, a mystery within Binding of Issac, and the latest on Resident Evil 7’s finger. For those of you who missed it, THE SAVE FILES is a new YouTube show where we…

The Art Of Total War: Warhammer

It’s always a pleasure when I get to showcase the work of an entire team on Fine Art, and doubly so whenit’s a game that I really, really like Total War: Warhammer may have been a game based on someone else’s property, but that didn’t mean the artists working on it had any less work…

Fighting Game Has Useless DLC That Players Buy To Support Devs

Honey Rose: Underdog Extraordinaire is newly released Steam game that fuses fighting games and visual novels. It’s a game about choice, something that even extends to its pricing model. The game is about Red, a university student who’s also an amateur fighter. You have to juggle both of her lives and all the complications that…

Clustertruck‘s Developers Are Pranking Its Twitch Streamers

Streamer Vinesauce was surfing a parade of trucks in the new physics platformer Clustertruck when, on screen, these words appeared: “Hello Vinesauce. We are in control now.” Since Clustertruck’s Tuesday release, its developers over at Landfall Games have been pranking the game’s Twitch streamers live, on-air. They enter their Twitch chats, to the surprise and…

Paladins Is Coming To Consoles, Just Like Overwatch

Afterlaunching into open beta on PC earlier this month and riding Overwatch comparisons to a steady spot on Steam’s ‘top games by player count’ list, Hi-Rez’s hero shooter Paladins is gearing up for its PlayStation 4 and Xbox One debut. Fun fact: Iplayed Paladins long before I got my hands on Overwatch, so the accusations…

Some Of Amazon’s New Games Actually Sound Pretty Cool

Amazon finally showed their hand last night during TwitchCon, announcing a trio of new games that their studios have been developing over the past few years. A couple of them sound pretty damn cool. For example, there’s New World, an open-world game about colonizing a supernatural version of 17th-century North America: New World is a…

Oh hey, it’s the Super Mario Kart development team in 1992. Lookin’ sharp, Mr. Very Young Tie Clip-Wearing Shigeru Miyamoto. Via Ninty Memories

Logitech’s Top Streaming Webcam Gets An Upgrade

Since its introduction in January of 2012, Logitech’s C920 has been the go-to webcam for high definition streaming. Today it takes a backseat to the new C922, able to stream and record at 60 frames per second and dynamically remove the background from broadcasts. It doesn’t feel like all that much of an upgrade initially.…

Inside Tokyo’s Newest Square Enix Cafe

On October 1 in Tokyo’s Akihabara, Square Enix is opening a new cafe. It’s called, wait for it, Square Enix Cafe. Clever! Square Enix already has the Artnia restaurant and shop in Shinjuku, and on October 5 is opening another cafe called Storia. Famitsu and Dengeki Online checked out the cafe, which is currently decked…

When One Piece Meets Overwatch In Fan Art

What happens when you mix Overwatch with One Piece? Cool fan art, it seems. Twenty-seven year-old Korean artist Han Suk Bum, who is based in Daejeon and who is incredibly talented, mashed up One Piece with Overwatch to terrific effect. In an interview on Insight (via tipster Sang), the aspiring comic book artist says he’s…